


i could never find the words

by stilinski



Series: Silly Shorts (Tumblr Ficlets) [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Succubus, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4341935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinski/pseuds/stilinski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles scoops up the food before Scott can get any ideas. "I talked to Derek for almost six hours straight this morning," he says. "I'm having an internal crisis."</p><p>There's a pause, and then: "Finally gonna admit you want to tap that?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	i could never find the words

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [Tumblr](http://obroech.tumblr.com/post/123313695456). I'm a dirty, rotten fluff addict.
> 
> I also want to add, if you've clicked here despite the "Implied/referenced rape/non con" tag, I want to offer a quick, spoilery explanation: Character A is attacked by a succubus; it is not discussed in explicit detail what the succubus does but it is implied that some form of sexual act was attempted or took place. This fic does not deal with the general psychological trauma that may have been inflicted on Character A. It is touched on and implied that Character A is not ready to talk about it, but will do so when he feels he can. Nothing is on screen, nothing is outright stated. This is the reason I've rated this piece Teen (if anyone feels it should be Mature, let me know) instead of G.
> 
> -
> 
>  
> 
> **Additionally: I do not give my consent for my work to be shared on GoodReads, or any other site with a similar objective. Ever. No exceptions.**

If he's being honest with himself, which is a thing that's happening more and more often of late - see, Scott? Personal growth! – then Stiles has to admit that when he says he has no idea how this all started, or how he came to be pacing outside the arrivals gate muttering half hysterically to himself, he's telling the biggest lies of his life.

Which, in a world in which werewolves are a thing, is really saying something.

Stiles knows how it started because he started it, and it started with a text to a number he'd, at the time, been pretending didn't exist for approximately six months.

' **Hey, I know you're probably enjoying your leather-encased sabbatical, but I'd appreciate your input: something's leaving foot-long feathers and talons all over crime scenes. Thoughts?** '

The response comes within the hour: ' **If you've already ruled out Buckbeak and horrifically overgrown birds, best bet is a harpy. Don't kill it – drive it off.** '

Stiles frowns at that - being told not to kill something? He has to take a second to check he's not texting Scott - and is halfway through composing a reply when another bubble comes up: ' **Dead harpy attracts more harpies – they're vengeful and will literally haunt you until you starve to death. Are the crime scenes all people who've died of starvation?** '

Stiles deletes the message he was tapping out because, huh. Three suicides, severely malnourished, and one dropped dead in a grocery store - medical examinations had revealed none of the victims had eaten in weeks. He responds with an affirmative, pulling his laptop over to scroll through the bestiary.

' **Triangulate approx. area of its nest based on kill zones – likely deep in the preserve. If you see it, don't make eye contact, don't let it draw your blood. Poor eyesight – if it spots you, get into thick trees and stay still. Take Scott. Scatter iron and salt around the whole area like your mountain ash - shouldn't need to get close enough to see it.** '

Stiles snorts. ' **You should write your own bestiary – various creatures rated from 1 to "take backup".** ' He tosses his phone down and turns his attention to the bestiary – now he knows what he's looking for, it's kind of obvious. Then, a thought occurs to him and he grabs his phone again. ' **Wait – Buckbeak? Hippogriffs aren't real, are they?** ' His phone stays silent. ' **DEREK.** '

' **Not to my knowledge, but I didn't think kanimas were anything but a scary cautionary tale, or that coming back from the dead was even possible.** '

*

And that's how it goes for a few more months: Stiles texts for occasional guidance and Derek is his usual completely, definitely, absolutely not-funny self.

Then Stiles has a close call with a succubus, of all things.

Scott shoots him worried looks all the way home – if Stiles had been any less close to having his soul sucked out of his dick by something with way more teeth than any creature has any business having, it would have been comical: Scott's the one with his shirt torn and is covered in greenish blood and viscera, and _Stiles_ is the one getting the anxious looks.

Scott gets him up to his apartment and makes him tea – after showering at Stiles' insistence. He looks as though he's getting ready to set up camp, too, his early start be damned, until Stiles assures him for the umpteenth time that he's fine, that Scott should go home and get some rest.

Scott leaves, but only after Stiles promises to call if he needs anything – " _Anything_ , Stiles; I don't care if you need a hug at four in the morning. Or maybe if there's some weird after-effect, if you need, like, lube, or something. I will buy you lube, dude." – and leaving his solemn, earnest word that he'll come straight over after work.

Stiles loves Scott.

He spends two hours walking around his apartment feeling restless and lonely, and then all of a sudden it's three in the morning and Stiles is scrubbing his skin raw in the shower, fighting back the horrified tears that have been threatening to overcome him since Scott hauled the succubus off of him.

Sinking down onto his bed afterward, he finds his phone. ' **Are you around?** '

He doesn't have to wait long: less than five minutes later, his phone flares to life in his hand. ' **What happened?** ' Stiles feels his eyes prickle, feeling kind of stupid and needy, something inexplicable surging in his chest because Derek knows something's wrong.

' **I got jumped by a succubus on my way home tonight.** ' Stiles sends it and immediately regrets it, following it up: ' **It's nothing, I'm fine, sorry if I woke you.** '

Stiles' phone begins to ring about five seconds later and he contemplates ignoring it. Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he clenches his jaw and picks up: Derek's as stubborn as he is, he knows, and he'll just keep phoning. Worse, he might call Scott.

"I said it's fine," Stiles says, for lack of anything else to say – he's kind of terrified that if he varies from his tried and true method of denying anything's wrong, he'll crumble. "Go back to sleep."

"I was already awake," Derek says and because Stiles has no idea where Derek actually is, he can't argue. "What happened? Don't gloss over it – I'll know."

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut. "I can't," he says, voice cracking. "It's too recent. I keep—I can still feel her – or, it, I guess? I feel disgusting. I spent an hour in the shower and I can still feel her breath, her _teeth_."

Derek makes a soft a noise. "Does Scott know? How did you get away?"

"Scott interrupted her; I sent him home after he practically carried me here," Stiles says, scraping his fingernails through his hair, gripping it tightly to stave off the waves of anxiety threatening at the edges of his mind. "She—I managed to pocket dial him before she—it was like being paralysed. I couldn't stop her. I should have been able to stop her."

"Stop it," Derek says, sharp but somehow soft. "It's not your fault. Did you even know there was a succubus in town?"

Stiles shakes his head, and then realises Derek can't see him. "No," he says. "There haven't been any suspicious deaths in a while – I guess I was her first target. Walking around alone at night in this town – I should know better by now. I guess I got too cocky, thinking I could stand my ground against anything the supernatural world wants to throw at me."

"You can, usually," Derek points out. "Listen to me, Stiles: this is the first time in a long, long time you've been caught off guard and not been able to get yourself out of a situation. How many times have you had to sweep in and save Scott's ass – or mine, for that matter?"

Stiles laughs despite himself. "I do sometimes wonder how you've survived so long out there without me," he says; Derek gives him an amused huff and Stiles is smiling stupidly at the wall opposite him.

"I'll update my bestiary to rate succubi as 'backup not optional, also consider moral support'."

He can't help the surprised laughter that escapes him, because even Stiles had forgotten about that. It hits him, then, full force and unapologetic: he misses Derek. He misses Derek's stupid Henley shirts and his stupid, impractical jeans. He misses Derek's dry wit and the way he manages to make an imperceptibly lifted eyebrow look sarcastic.

"I should get some sleep," Stiles says, giving his pillows a dubious look.

"Are you saying that because you're actually going to sleep, or because you feel guilty because you don't believe me when I said I was already up?" Derek asks in a tone that couldn't be flatter if he drove a steamroller over it.

"I mean, it's fine - it's practically sunrise anyway," Stiles says weakly. "I'll just grab some cereal and coffee and I'll be fine. Scott's coming over after work tomorrow – or today, I guess. I'll sleep while he's here."

"It's my talk plan we're using; it's not like I use it to actually speak to anybody else anyway," Derek says, and damn this new, reasonable side of him. "Don't hang up – just talk to me."

"Derek, I _can't_. Not--not right now, okay? Not yet."

"It doesn't have to be about the succubus," Derek tells him. "How's work – is your boss still ragging on you? Did your neighbour's gnome collection reappear?"

Stiles isn't sure how he feels about Derek seeming to remember every throwaway comment Stiles has slipped into their bantering-slash-advice over the past few months. "The gnome collection turned back up," he says. "A prank pulled by her grandson, I think. Creepy little things – I'd have paid him to conveniently lose them somewhere, if I'd known it was him. At least she took them all inside, though, after the cat from upstairs kept knocking the ones off of the balcony."

"That's a shame," Derek says dryly and Stiles grins into his palm.

"She tried to sue for destruction of property," Stiles says, and he can do this, he can talk about normal things, he can let himself stop thinking for a while; the knot in his chest is already beginning to loosen. "My dad has her request for him to arrest the cat framed in his office."

They talk until the sun is well and truly risen and Stiles' bedroom is flooded with warm light. Derek laughs when Stiles has a chronic yawning fit in the middle of an anecdote about his boss.

"Scott's gonna be there in a few hours," Derek says. "Do you think you can sleep now?"

Stiles hums, already halfway there – he's been lying down, curled on his side, for the past thirty minutes and his eyelids have been growing steadily heavier.

"Good," Derek says. "I'll text Scott to bring food with him. Get some sleep."

* 

Stiles doesn't remember hanging up, but he wakes up a few hours later when Scott arrives with take out, his phone in his hand, the little flashing LED telling him his battery's about to die.

Scott noisily bustles around the kitchen – he knows it's the most effective, unobtrusive way of waking Stiles up – and Stiles rolls over to put his phone on charge, shrugging into an oversized hoody as he follows his nose.

Scott shoves a plate of food and a bottle of beer into his hands without a word, and then goes to make himself at home on Stiles' couch, firing up one of the three gaming consoles. He lets Stiles lean against him as they eat, doesn't offer platitudes or condolences, only speaks to make an offhand comment about something onscreen.

Stiles really loves Scott.

It's with a soft start that he realises he kind-of sort-of might love Derek, too.

Not in an all-encompassing, _romantic_ sense or anything, but he kind-of sort-of might wish Derek were there for him to press against and find comfort in the warmth of his body, in the general peacefulness of his presence.

Okay, so maybe the thought of cuddling up with Derek is a little more stirring than doing the same with Scott, and maybe the mental image of it involves a little more intimacy, but he's not _in_ love. Stiles would know if he was in love.

Right?

"What's up, dude?" Scott asks, eyeing the last clump of noodles on Stiles' plate. "You're a million miles away."

Stiles scoops up the food before Scott can get any ideas. "I talked to Derek for almost six hours straight this morning," he says. "I'm having an internal crisis."

There's a pause, and then: "Finally gonna admit you want to tap that?" he asks, and then laughs when Stiles gives him his best attempt at a reproachful look through his mouthful of noodles.

Scratch all of the above: Stiles doesn't love Scott. Not even a little.

*

Internal crises aside, Stiles finds a reason to text Derek almost every night thereafter. The kicker is that Derek always replies – there's rarely even more than an hour's gap, even when Stiles texts him at two in the morning to say the silence of his apartment is unnerving. (Derek calls him and Stiles listens to him murmur about nothing in particular for an hour before he feels safe enough to close his eyes for longer than a minute.)

It's a year since Derek left Beacon Hills when it finally takes Derek over an hour to respond to Stiles – over four hours, actually. Stiles has worked himself into a light panic by the time Derek calls him in response to his four – it would have been triple or quadruple that, easily, if Scott hadn't of been with Stiles to take his phone away – text messages.

"Hey," Derek says, sounding entirely unruffled which only serves to make Stiles scowl – Scott's badly suppressing laughter at his expense in his peripheral vision.

"Where the hell are you? What happened? Did your phone die in the middle of the woods, or--?"

He's cut off by the sound of a loudspeaker on Derek's end, announcing something that sounds like flight times. "I was on a plane," Derek says. "That's my connecting just been announced – sorry, I thought I had more time before boarding – come pick me up? I'll be in Sacramento in two hours."

"What? Wait, Derek—!"

But he's gone. Infuriatingly, he finds the time amidst his rushing to board to send Stiles a text with a smug-looking emoji.

"Come on, we're heading up to Sacramento," Stiles manages to grind out, grabbing a hoody and his car keys. Eyes gleaming with amusement, Scott falls into step with him – they'd been planning on having lunch and then just vegging out for the rest of the day, like they do every Saturday, so it's not as though Derek's arrival is interrupting anything of particular importance, and impromptu road trips are always a great source of entertainment.

*

This all culminates, two hours later, with Stiles standing outside of the arrivals gate at Sacramento International. He attempts to look nonchalant, fiddling with his phone, for the first ten minutes, but the waiting gets too much for him and he begins to pace.

"The board definitely said it had landed, right? And this is the right flight number?"

Scott shrugs, nodding. He's standing against a pillar looking effortlessly calm and collected – Stiles narrows his eyes and spins on his heel to resume his pacing just as the doors begin to open. Stiles shoves his phone into Scott's hand.

"Tell me I'm not reading this wrong."

"You're not reading this wrong."

Stiles loves Scott.

"This is going to be embarrassing," he says by way of explanation, because there's a very familiar saunter under a plain baseball cap and wrapped in a leather jacket. He knows the second Derek spots him, because his head jerks up and their eyes meet. Stiles can't help it – he runs.

He runs and doesn't stop until he's colliding with Derek; Derek catches him, abandoning his suitcase to wrap both arms around him, allowing Stiles' momentum to send them spinning – miraculously, without hitting anyone.

Stiles doesn't think, doesn't _want_ to think, as Derek sets him back on his feet and neither of them let go, as he leans back just enough to look Derek in the eyes, which are crinkled up at the sides. Derek knocks the peak of his cap up slightly and leans in – slowly, probably in order to let Stiles escape, and Stiles closes the distance and kisses him, curling both of his hands in the front of Derek's shirt.

" _Asshole_ ," Stiles breathes when they finally break apart – he can hear Scott whooping and hollering and generally making a spectacle of himself somewhere behind him.

Derek only laughs – Derek! Laughing! Stiles is going to _die_ – and squeezes him before letting go so that he can go and retrieve his suitcase.

Stiles is absolutely not grinning goofily as he makes his way over to Scott, who absolutely _is_ grinning goofily. "I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"Never, ever," Scott promises, beaming and slinging an arm over his shoulders. Derek reaches them, suitcase in tow, and catches Stiles' hand as they walk as if it's no big deal, as if it's something they do all the time, as if they haven't just kissed for the first time in a crowded airport like some kind of cliché.

He thinks about it for a second or two, and maybe it's not that big of a deal, maybe it is something they could have been doing all along. Maybe Stiles doesn't mind being a giant cliché.

"How long have we been dating?" Stiles asks.

" _Years_ ," Scott says before Derek can respond, all fond and exasperated. Derek snorts and Stiles rolls his eyes, but neither of them try to correct him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://obroech.tumblr.com) \-- come say hi!


End file.
